


Burning Up the Quarter Mile

by victoria_p (musesfool)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Episode Tag, Gen, Schmoop
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-02-20
Updated: 2008-02-20
Packaged: 2017-10-03 21:01:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,564
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22184
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/musesfool/pseuds/victoria_p
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Riding in the car with Dean behind the wheel feels as safe as lying in bed with a gun under his pillow and a salt circle poured on the carpet. (Mystery Spot coda)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Burning Up the Quarter Mile

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to luzdeestrellas for betaing. Written for the lovely and talented dotfic's birthday.

Florida is far behind them, and they're in the safe space between Wednesday and Tuesday, asphalt stretching out forever in both directions, when Sam says, "What's your dream car?"

Dean glances over, mouth curving up into a smug grin. "You're riding in her."

Sam shakes his head at the pat answer. "No, seriously, Dean. Money is no object. Gas is free. Whatever you want." They've always had these kinds of conversations, passing the time on long drives from nowhere to nowhere--Batman versus Superman or Fuck, Marry, Kill--but now when Sam asks questions to get Dean going, he does it less to get under Dean's skin and annoy him, and more to hear his voice filling up the empty spaces Sam can still remember from his months alone.

"Got what I want. None better." Dean pets the dashboard. "Ain't that right, baby?" The car jumps forward with a low roar, and even though Sam knows it's just Dean leaning on the gas, it still _feels_ like the car is answering him. Dean glances over again, and this time, his forehead is creased with worried lines. "Why? You're not thinking of ditching the car when I'm--"

Sam bolts upright from his slouch against the door. "No. No." His voice is sharp, loud, determined. "You're not gonna--"

"Okay, Sammy. Okay." Dean squeezes Sam's knee gently, taps it once, twice, which Sam now knows is just as much for Dean's reassurance as his own.

"I was just wondering," he says, and Dean gives him another odd look.

"Why? What's yours?"

Sam shrugs. "Don't really have one." Cars were always Dean's thing, and Dad's; they never played much part when he used to fantasize about his future, though he's pretty sure he always picked something sleek and modern and nothing like the hulking car that's been home his whole life. Now he can't imagine anything else, either.

Before Dean can ask something he doesn't want to answer, Sam cranks his window down, the rush of air and road loud enough to end the conversation. He closes his eyes against the cool night wind that blows through his hair, and breathes, letting the steady, familiar motion of the car lull him. Sometimes, he thinks if they could just stay in the car, stay on the road, they could outrun hell itself.

Sometimes, he's afraid he won't find a solution, and that's what they'll end up doing.

*

Over the next few weeks, Sam picks easy hunts--an angry spirit in Charleston, a chupacabra outside Shreveport--trying to ease back into partnering with Dean as if he'd never stopped. He's more aggressive than he used to be, doesn't hang back and let Dean take point all the time, the way Dean likes to. Dean lets him get away with it for the moment, unwilling to start squabbling when they're actually in the middle of a hunt, but Sam knows there's a reckoning coming soon. He can see it in the sidelong glances Dean shoots at him, puzzled frown on his face, the way his mouth opens and closes like he's got something to say but isn't sure how to say it.

Sam pretends not to notice.

*

There's not a whole lot of town to Sadieville, Kentucky--a church and a liquor store, a gas station and a Denny's line the main strip, which lasts for all of two stoplights. Not many people to talk to, either, and they dig up Clarence Watkins' grave on the word of the ladies at the church, all of whom flirt outrageously with them. Dean flirts back instinctually, but the smile on Sam's face is tight and false, as if he's forgotten how to be friendly, and he can feel the weight of Dean's concerned glance on his back as they walk to the car.

Two feet deep into the damp, heavy soil and Dean leans on his shovel and says, "I realize I'm not much for caring and sharing, Sam, but if you need to talk--"

Sam continues digging, breathing in the scent of crushed grass and newly turned dirt and his own sour sweat. "I don't."

"Sam." It's both a rebuke and a plea, and Sam steels himself against it.

"I'm fine, Dean."

"You're not fine, Sam." Dean's voice is gentle, implacable, and Sam feels a warm ache in his chest that makes it hard to breathe for a second.

He finally stops digging and turns to face Dean, pushing sweaty hair out of his eyes with one dirty hand. "Dean--"

"I get that you don't want to talk about it. Believe me, I get it. But that's not you." Dean waves a hand. "Eventually, you're gonna need to talk about it, and, well, I'm here when you do."

"Wow, all that Oprah you watch has finally had an effect."

"Shut up."

Sam keeps his mouth shut, grimly amused. He knows Dean is right, but he can't talk about it. Not yet. Maybe not ever. But definitely not now, and not here.

Dean starts digging again with an annoyed huff that tells Sam he's only off the hook for the moment, and that the third degree will start again soon enough.

He's almost glad when Watkins' ghost arrives; it gives him something to do. The ghost heads straight for Dean, who is busy trying to break open the coffin lid. Sam pumps the ghost full of rock salt, reloading and shooting at curls of mist when there's no defined shape left to shoot at. He keeps shooting, focused, mechanical, determined to keep Dean safe, until Dean's scrambled back up onto the grass, and the flames take the bones, dispersing the ghost for good.

"What the shit was that, Sammy?" Dean taps Sam's chest twice with the flat of his hand; Sam's not sure if it's meant as a restraint or a reassurance. "You gonna keep telling me you're fine?"

Sam shrugs, pulls away from the touch instead of leaning into it like he wants to; there was a time he would have been embarrassed by his aggressive determination to keep Dean from getting hurt, but that time is long gone.

Dean bumps his shoulder. "Well, next time you wanna get your Rambo on, give me a little warning, all right?"

Sam smiles at that, leans into Dean's shoulder, warm and solid and _there_ against his arm. "Yeah, okay."

*

They're on their way out of town, sitting at the first stoplight on the main drag, heading north towards Cincinnati, when a tricked out blue Mustang GT 500 pulls up beside them, bass thumping loud enough to make Sam's teeth ache. The driver revs the engine, and Dean responds the way he always has, letting the Impala growl back.

Dean's window is down, his arm riding easy on the door, and the kids in the Mustang give the car a long look. "You wanna go?" the driver calls over.

Dean flashes them a grin, shrugs a shoulder, then glances at Sam. "What do you say, Sammy?"

"We shouldn't. The cops--" But he knows the cops in this town are holed up for the duration, won't pay attention to two cars speeding down the strip from light to light; they probably hear it every night.

"Come on, Sam. Live a little." Dean grins again, wicked and sharp. "You don't think we could take 'em?"

"We could totally take 'em," Sam answers, feels his own mouth curving into a smile, first one in weeks that doesn't feel false. Dean beams in response.

"Light to light?" Dean calls back to the kids in the other car, like he doesn't know how this is done, didn't spend the summer he was sixteen burning up the quarter mile races on the nights Dad didn't take them hunting. Sam remembers the cocky grin on his face, the bowlegged swagger when he'd come in a few hundred bucks richer than he'd left, smelling like sex and some girl's perfume. He'd taken Sam with him once or twice, when Dad wasn't around, and Sam feels the same excitement now as he did then, heart pumping and every sense on high alert.

"Yeah, on the green," the kid in the Mustang answers.

The light turns and they peel out, the roar of the engine humming in Sam's bones, in his blood, and Dean's laughing over it, like he knows he's going to win, like he's not racing a newer, lighter, faster car.

Sam should be nervous, should be worried that they're going to crash, that Dean's going to die, and it's there in the back of his mind (it always is), but for the first time since those hellish months in Broward County, he relaxes. Riding in the car with Dean behind the wheel feels as safe as lying in bed with a gun under his pillow and a salt circle poured on the carpet.

It's over almost before it starts, tires eating up the asphalt and wind whipping through their hair. The Impala noses out the Mustang by bare inches, and as Dean eases the car to a halt, he reaches over to ruffle Sam's already windswept hair.

"We are freaking _awesome_," Dean crows, raising his hand for the high five Sam is waiting to give him.

Sam laughs, feeling the tightness in his shoulders and chest ease for the first time in forever. "We really are," he answers, and believes it.

end

~*~


End file.
